CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Luna turned to another pile of documents, her fingers already pulling at the frayed edges of what appeared to be the oldest scroll in their collection. Kaine blinked hard against the gritty sensation that had taken residence behind his eyelids, a persistent reminder of nights without proper sleep.
The archives' enchanted lights cast long shadows across their workspace, illuminating dust motes that danced between towering shelves—silent witnesses to their desperate search for answers.
Three days since his return to Frostforge, and still the documents from Verdant Port yielded their secrets with reluctance, as though the knowledge itself resisted discovery.
Their workspace had transformed into a scholar's battlefield—stacks of parchment arranged in concentric circles around them, some weighted with stones, others rolled and tied with colored thread to indicate their level of translation.
Inkwells and quills stood at attention beside notebooks filled with Kaine's cramped handwriting and Luna's more elegant script.
Empty mugs testified to countless cups of strong tea, brought by a rotation of initiates whom Wolfe had assigned to assist them—or perhaps to monitor their progress.
Kaine rubbed his eyes, trying to focus on the page before him. The Warden script blurred, the angular characters seeming to shift and rearrange themselves. He blinked hard, forcing them back into place through sheer will.
"I need to check on Celeste and Mari soon," he said, as much to himself as to Luna. "Make sure they're settling in."
Luna nodded absently, already absorbed in her new discovery. "This section is interesting," she said after a moment. "It's not tactical information or invasion plans like the others. It's..." She frowned, tracing the characters with her fingertip. "It's genealogies. Family records. Extensive ones."
"Warden families?" Kaine asked, leaning forward despite his fatigue.
"No. Mainland families. Continental bloodlines." Luna pulled another document closer, comparing the scripts. "They've been tracking magical lineages across the Southern Kingdoms for generations. Look at these notations—dates, locations, specific abilities manifested."
Kaine's exhaustion receded slightly, pushed back by a surge of interest. "The bloodline compatibility mentioned in the other documents."
"Exactly." Luna set the first scroll aside and reached for another. "They've been particularly focused on families with histories of rare magical talents. Not just the common affinities for elements or crafting, but unusual abilities that appear only sporadically."
Kaine grunted in acknowledgment, his eyes scanning his own translation notes. The references to magical bloodlines had appeared in multiple documents, always without a clear explanation of what magic they were referring to—or what purpose it was supposed to serve for the Wardens.
They worked in silence for several more minutes, the only sounds the soft rustle of parchment and the scratch of quills against paper. When Luna spoke again, her voice held the careful neutrality that indicated she'd found something significant.
"This page describes a specific type of magic the Wardens believe is hereditary," she said, sliding a half-translated document toward Kaine. "They call it 'natural attunement'—a sensitivity to magical currents that they claim runs in certain bloodlines."
Kaine's fatigue vanished as though doused with cold water. He pulled the parchment closer, scanning Luna's partial translation. "What kind of sensitivity?"
Luna leaned back in her chair, rolling her shoulders to ease the stiffness of hours hunched over documents.
"I'm still working through the details, but from what I can translate, it's a heightened awareness of magical energy—particularly as it flows through natural materials.
" She frowned in concentration as she translated a difficult passage.
"The text says... those with this ability can sense the flow of magic through anything 'of the earth'—plants, stones, metals. "
"Current-sensing," Kaine breathed, his heart rate accelerating. "Like Thalia's ability with metals and plants."
The realization struck with the force of revelation.
Thalia's uncanny talent for metallurgy, her instinctive understanding of how magic flowed through different alloys, her childhood aptitude for identifying which herbs contained the strongest properties—all manifestations of this "natural attunement" the Wardens sought.
"That's why they were sorting people in Verdant Port," he said, pieces clicking into place. "They weren't just looking for any magical bloodline. They were searching specifically for current sensors."
Luna nodded slowly. "And Thalia's family was separated during the occupation. Her mother and sister were held in different facilities..."
"Because Mari is descended from a certain bloodline, and Celeste isn’t," Kaine finished. He rose abruptly, his chair scraping against the stone floor. "Whatever this magic is, it must run through Thalia’s paternal family line. I need to speak with Celeste."
Luna blinked in surprise. "Now? It's the middle of the night."
"She works late in the infirmary. The nightmares prevent her from sleeping." Kaine was already gathering his notes. "Keep working on this section. I'll be back soon."
He left the archives with quick strides, his mind racing ahead of his feet.
If current-sensing ran in bloodlines as the Wardens believed, then Thalia must have inherited it from one of her parents.
Her mother, with her knowledge of herbs and remedies, seemed the likely source.
But why would the Wardens care so much about this specific ability?
The academy corridors were largely deserted at this hour, lit only by the occasional ice-metal sconce casting blue-white light across the stone walls.
The temperature dropped as Kaine ascended from the archives' depths toward the upper levels where the infirmary occupied a wing of its own.
His breath formed small clouds in the chill air, a familiar comfort after the stifling warmth of the Southern climate.
As he walked, Kaine's thoughts turned to Celeste and Mari, to the burden of responsibility he carried for their well-being.
He had visited them daily since their arrival, ensuring they had everything they needed, that they were treated with respect despite the lingering prejudice some Northerners harbored toward Southern refugees.
Celeste had adapted with remarkable resilience, offering her knowledge of Southern remedies to the infirmary staff.
Mari remained quieter, withdrawn, the trauma of occupation still evident in her watchful eyes and startled responses to sudden movements.
Both women asked about Thalia each time they saw him. Each time, he offered reassurances he didn't feel, promises he couldn't keep.
"She's resourceful," he'd told them yesterday. "She'll find her way back."
The words had felt hollow even as he spoke them. The truth—that Thalia had sailed into enemy waters, pursuing a mission even Wolfe considered near-suicidal—remained locked behind his teeth, a burden he couldn't share.
The infirmary door stood ajar, a sliver of warm light spilling into the corridor. Kaine paused in the doorway, scanning the rows of empty beds until his gaze settled on a familiar figure at the far end of the room.
Celeste stood at a workbench beneath one of the high windows, her slender hands sorting dried plants with practiced efficiency. The moonlight streaming through the glass turned her silver-streaked hair to quicksilver, accentuating the fatigue etched into the lines of her face.
She glanced up at his approach, her hands never pausing in their work. "Kaine," she acknowledged, her voice carrying the same warm resilience he'd come to associate with her daughter. "What brings you here at this hour? You should be resting."
"So should you," he countered gently.
A smile flickered across her features, there and gone. "Sleep and I have come to an arrangement. I don't seek it, and it doesn't find me."
The simple admission of her nightmares, delivered without self-pity, increased Kaine's respect for this woman who had endured occupation, separation from her children, and displacement from her home with such quiet strength.
"What are you working on?" he asked, nodding toward the herbs spread across the workbench.
"Fever remedies," Celeste replied, gesturing to several small bundles of dried leaves. "Your Northern medicines are effective against the cold, but less so against the fevers that plague the refugee quarters. These will help."
Kaine moved closer, studying the plants without touching them. How to approach the question he needed answered? Direct inquiry seemed best; Celeste had little patience for circumspection.
"I wanted to ask you something," he began, meeting her gaze directly. "About Thalia's ability to sense currents in metals and plants. Is it something you share? Something that runs in your family?"
Surprise flickered across Celeste's features. "No, I've never had such a gift." She tied off a bundle of leaves with practiced fingers. "My skills with plants come from knowledge passed down through generations, not from any innate magical sensitivity."
"And Thalia's father?" Kaine pressed. "Did he have this ability?"
A shadow passed over Celeste's face at the mention of her late husband.
"Marten was a good man, but not particularly gifted with herbs or metals.
If anything, he was less adept than most in our family.
" She paused, studying Kaine with sudden intensity.
"Why do you ask? What significance does this have? "
Kaine hesitated, unwilling to burden her with the full weight of what they'd discovered—the connection between current-sensing and the Wardens' interest in specific bloodlines, the implications for Thalia's safety if she were indeed what the Wardens sought.
"We're trying to understand why the Wardens targeted certain families in Verdant Port," he said instead, offering a portion of the truth. "The documents suggest they were looking for people with specific magical affinities."
Celeste's eyes narrowed slightly, her hands stilling on the herbs. "There's more you're not telling me."
"There is," Kaine admitted. "But I need to confirm some things first. When I know more, I promise I'll explain everything."
She held his gaze for a long moment, then nodded once, accepting his answer with the same grace with which she had accepted everything since her arrival at Frostforge.
"Thalia's gift appeared early," she said, returning to her work.
"Before her tenth year. I thought it was simply an unusual aptitude, not true magic. "
"Thank you," Kaine said, meaning it. "I'll return tomorrow. Try to rest, if you can."
As he left the infirmary, Kaine's mind turned over this new puzzle piece.
If neither Celeste nor Thalia's father possessed the current-sensing ability, how had Thalia inherited it?
Was the Warden theory of bloodline inheritance wrong?
Or was there something in Thalia's ancestry that Celeste herself didn't know?
More importantly, what did this mean for Thalia now, sailing into the heart of danger with an ability the Wardens valued enough to occupy an entire city to find?
His thoughts shifted to Senna, to his long-held suspicion that she possessed a similar sensitivity to magical currents.
He had noticed it during their childhood, before his imprisonment—the way she seemed to know instinctively which metals would hold enchantment best, how she could identify ore deposits by touch alone.
Yet Senna and Thalia could hardly be more different—one from the frozen Reaches of the North, the other from the sunbaked ports of the South; one tall and pale with eyes like winter, the other short and bronze-skinned with eyes that held summer's warmth.
If both possessed this "natural attunement," it could not be a simple matter of shared ancestry.
Kaine quickened his pace back toward the archives. When he pushed open the heavy doors, he found Luna sitting rigid in her chair, her eyes wide with revelation, a single document laid before her.
"What is it?" he asked, crossing the room in long strides. "What did you find?"
"The Wardens' documents about Frostforge," Luna said, her voice hushed with awe. "They believe the academy is not just a school or fortress—it's a magical defense structure, specifically designed to protect the mainland from whatever the Deep Tide is."
Kaine's breath caught in his throat. The pieces aligned with terrible clarity—his years of research into Frostforge's original purpose, the Founders' cryptic references to a "threat from the sea," the Wardens' desperate flight from their ancestral islands, the captured storm mage’s ominous final words about something beyond the fog that wreathed the archipelago.
"The 'threat from the sea,'" he breathed. "The Founders' writings... they were talking about the Deep Tide all along."
He began to pace, energy surging through his exhausted body as connections formed in rapid succession. "The Wardens are right about Frostforge. It was built as a defense—not against human enemies, but against something older, something worse."
A memory surfaced—Maven standing in the Founders' chamber, her knife at Thalia's throat, her voice tight with desperation as she spoke of awakening the Founders' Price through blood sacrifice.
At the time, he had believed her actions were driven by Northern prejudice, by the belief that Southern students were expendable. Now, he understood the terrible truth.
"Maven knew," he said, the realization striking like lightning. "She wasn't trying to kill Thalia just because she was a Southerner. She knew about Thalia’s abilities. She believed Thalia's bloodline could awaken Frostforge's ancient defenses."
Luna's eyes widened. "The current-sensing ability—"
"Must be connected to whatever power Frostforge was designed to channel," Kaine finished. "Maven somehow knew about Thalia's gift, and she thought sacrificing her would trigger the true Founders' Price—the one that would protect the continent from the Deep Tide."
"Whatever the Deep Tide is,” Luna said, her gaze lost in the middle distance.
The enchanted lights flickered above, shadows dancing across the stone floor like restless ghosts.
In the silence between the stacks, centuries of vigilance pressed close—the echoes of generations who had stood sentinel against a threat now almost forgotten, guarding a danger they could no longer name.
A danger that still lurked in the waters of the archipelago, into which Thalia, Roran, and Ashe had sailed, blind to forces stirring beneath the waves.